The Beacon Assault
by blakhoole
Summary: My second RWBY fic. When the Beacon Huntsperson Transport Carrier (HTC) is attacked by unknown forces, what will the survivors do to rebuild? Can they cope with losses, even if evil draws nearer?
1. Release the Kraken

**January 3, 2256**

**0 BB**

**21:05 Hours**

**Near _Beacon _Huntsman Transport Carrier**

**Near Remnant IV**

_Two minutes._

"Neo says two minutes," came the voice of the interpreter from the cockpit as a low hum reverberated through the shuttle. It would seem strange that she could only communicate in sign language and still be a pilot, but she didn't necessarily need hearing to fly a spaceship. Gauges on the dashboard fed indicators of the ship's speed, altitude, and weapons status, while vision (something Neo _did _have) was important for basically everything. If Neo had been blind, the head of their little organization would most likely have had to find a different pilot.

In the cockpit of the _Delusion_, Neo calmly manipulated switches and dials, expertly tweaking the thrust values so that no trace of the attacking shuttle could be found. In two minutes, she would engage a cloaking device and extend the battering ram, which had been specially modified in preparation for the raid. The twenty-strong population of the Queen's Pawns could barely sit in the tiny Kestrel-class shuttle, let alone stand while they prepared for their raid.

Fifteen of them were stereotypical evil goons – which, in this day and age, seemed to be as plentiful as blasters. They all had short knives strapped to their utility belts, wore advanced grey Huntsman armor and standard spherical Huntsman battle helmets, stolen from a Republican Army staff depot after Neo had slapped a fat wad of Lien into the head foreman's hands. The slate-grey helmets had a visor with an integrated HUD with access to, according to the Repub Army Chairman: _"Tactical communications system, a complete and total predictive targeting system, allowing for incapacitation or outright shooting, a smart reloading system, an inclusive grenade trajectory plotter and neutralizer, among many features." _Technical translation: The helmets could communicate in a sealed-system so no one could overhear, it could send out targeting info, weak points to target, allow for the soldiers to capture someone, have an automatic reload synced to the blaster, and a system that would allow it to detect and automatically neutralize an incoming grenade. Nothing but the latest tech for the Queen's Pawns. The tech wouldn't be out for another four years, but money could buy practically everything, and a large envelope of money left at the Republican HQ on Remnant saw to that.

Each one of them also carried two grenades and two blasters. The grenades were standard plasma grenades with a six-second detonator. Cheap, but very, very effective. The primary blasters were ES-4s, automatics with 30-bolt magazines. Not the latest tech, but they were comparable to Earth's AK-47s in durability and mobility. The secondary blaster was a BP-18 pistol. It only had a seven-bolt magazine, but the raw stopping power would probably take down a Goliath.

Aside from the fifteen people with helmets, armor, and blasters, four people stood on the other end of the cabin. They wore no armor and carried weapons which were very different from the ES-4s and BP-18s.

The first person was so tall that her head almost touched the roof of the _Delusion. _Raven-black hair stretched over her head and the bangs of one eye, rumored to have been lost in a fight with a powerful silver-eyed Huntress. The other eye was brown, seething with a fiery glow. Her weapons were nothing more than her fists, which could conjure up streams of flame and balls of flame that were powerful enough to rival the plasma grenades' stopping power. She was nearing thirty, but Cinder Fall was the head of the Queen's Pawns, and she wouldn't let something as trivial as age stop her progress. Her choice of attire was a long black dress.

The second person was much younger, about sixteen or seventeen at a glance. Her hair was the color of cantaloupe, and she wore an unusual outfit – green top and pants. Her weapons, instead of a blaster, were two shrike shaped swords that could be rotated 180 degrees and fire bullets. Most if not all of the galaxy had already moved on to plasma bolts and lasers, but Emerald Sustrai had an odd fondness for old-fashioned technology.

The third person, a boy, was about the same height as Emerald. He seemed to be filling in for a monochrome color scheme as he wore a grey shirt, bandolier and black tunic, while his hair was dull grey. Mercury Black's choice of weapon was a boot. Two boots, to be specific. Two enclosed shotgun, ammo-loading, coolant systems, to be extremely specific.

Mercury's boots had been specially modified to fire shotgun shells. They were extremely effective in close-quarters combat, but were useless far away. To make up for this, an AMR-106 was slung over one of his shoulders.

The AMR-106 was a thing of beauty. A machine gun as beautiful as it was deadly, it featured single trigger locks, fingerprint ID, plasma and laser rifles, and the option to fire suppressed rounds from the barrel. A single AMR cost a lot of Lien, but Lien was something that the Queen's Pawns were in no shortage of. Ammo wasn't hard to come by either. Mercury had five 100-round magazines in his bandolier pockets. It was no exaggeration to say he came prepared.

Thanks to the fingerprint ID, there was no chance that an enemy could use the hardware. Mercury had spoken into the AMRs voice recognition AI after interfacing it with his helmet. In the event someone unauthorized had attempted to use it, the AMR would explode. Violently.

The fourth person was someone a bit more eccentric. He was about the same age and height as Cinder, with a bowler hat on his head and a cane that could fire explosive shells. It was Roman Torchwick's idea to stage a raid on the _Beacon_, but he needed a lot more firepower to take it on. The only person who could have organized the raid and have enough Lien to buy everything was Cinder.

Taking on an HTC wasn't easy. A Huntsman (despite the fact there were huntresses aboard, this was the name of the transport) Transport Carrier had multiple security measures. The airlocks were remotely operated, which ruled out a ground assault. The decks were secured from explosives. A lockdown alarm could shut every door, window, and non-critical control system. Each HTC also carried a wing of defense aircraft, tiny Viper jets. The jets were tiny, but they packed a punch with missiles and bullets.

The only way to get into the HTC without using the airlock was via a Republican assault shuttle. These had a large prow on the front. The pilot would ram the ship from the side, puncturing the hull as the ship and target formed an airtight seal. The assault team would then be able to walk right into the ship, thanks to the airlock in the shuttle.

The idea was to storm the bridge immediately, so that the Huntsmen and Huntresses would be ordered to surrender. The ship would then be diverted (hence, the need for Neo) and taken to the Queen's Pawns hideout on Naris. After it landed, the hostages would be released. Hopefully.

(To be fair, this was a better plan than Roman's first one, which was to take the assault shuttle, crash it into the bridge, and then order them to surrender.)

However, Roman knew that the Huntresses had Aura, which would make killing them an absolute pain in the ass. So he rounded up a lot of his gang members who wouldn't mind dying (the bonus was a pay rise) and put them in four other shuttles.

Oh, and he had help from the White Fang, too. His buddy, Adam Taurus, had a personal vendetta against one of the huntresses and was more than happy to dispatch 30 Faunus grunts to attack the ship.

The interpreter's voice crackled through the comm speaker. "Neo tells me we've just got a positive radar reading on the four transports."

The four transports were the _Dream, _the _Revenge, _the _Vengeance, _and _Melodic Cudgel_. Each transport held 15 people. That meant a grand total of 60 people making their assault. Everything was carefully planned. Ten seconds after the _Delusion _breached the shuttle, the _Dream _would follow, followed by the _Revenge_, and so on. The plan was to have every shuttle confirm a positive seal within 1 minute.

"Neo says we're good for cloak in a minute."

_Good for cloak. _That meant that in a minute, Neo would activate the cloaking device just before the _Beacon_'s radar would detect them. If not, they would hail the _Delusion _on the comm while the other ships would jump to hyperspace immediately. At that point, Cinder wouldn't be sure what to do. The ship could simply blow them into oblivion, or send a Viper fighter to do the same.

All she could do was sit tight and hope that Neo's cloaking worked.

The wait was only fifty seconds, but it felt like an hour as the low hum of the shuttle's engines reverberated through the cabin.

Finally, the interpreter's voice came on. "Cloaking in five, four, three, two, one..."

The whole ship shuddered, then the cloaking device activated, making the outside of the ship look muzzy. Everything looked blurry, as if they were underwater.

Unfortunately, the interpreter forgot to mention something – and that's because Neo didn't tell her.

The ship _hadn't_ engaged the cloak on time. Neo was looking at the speed dial and targeting indicators too closely, and didn't see the outline on the radar screen until it was too late.

_Fuck! _If she could have sworn, she most certainly would have. As it was, Neo had to content herself with a lunge for the cloaking switch. She flipped it on and watched as the_ Beacon_ vanished from the radar screen. She also hoped that the radar operator was tired, lazy, or both. The alternative was too horrible to think about.

Although Neo would never have known it, she was right on both counts. The radar officer _was_ tired and lazy.

Radar Officer Lee Maasch was perhaps the worst person to ever be assigned to a radar operating position. He slacked off, went to bars, was always tired, grumpy, and irritable, and seemed to hate new technology. He was pushing sixty, with grey hair and stubble clinging to his tired, weary face. He believed that radar operation was a boring job. He just sat there staring at a green screen while the radar arm seemed to move as slow as humanly possible. The only company he had were blipping screens, power conduits, and another junior radar officer.

_Nothing ever happens here,_ he said, glumly, taking a sip of simcoffee. His declaration was instantly proven wrong, however, as a red dot appeared on the screen, steadily moving towards the ship. Three sets of numbers appeared to the left side of it. The ship speed, distance to the_ Beacon, _and ship registration.

_What?_

He keyed in the comm link connecting him to the bridge, then paused. _Probably just some civ shuttle that got lost. _

His solution to diagnose this was a hard slap on the edge of the LCD display. Sure enough, the shuttle fuzzed and disappeared from radar. (This was, of course, Neo activating the cloak.)

The correct protocol in a situation like this was to key in the comm link and report to the bridge. There, the officer would say the location and speed of the blip. The bridge would then key in the comm to connect with the shuttle and establish its identity.

But Lee had never followed protocol in his thirty years of service, and he sure as hell wouldn't start now.

Later, there would be an investigation. A CCTV in the ceiling recording audio would clearly show the unidentified shuttle and his breach of protocol. He would be court-martialed and expelled from service, if not executed for insubordination and endangering lives.

Lee wanted to be known as a hero. He would forever be known as the man who failed to stop a brutal terrorist attack on a carrier full of Huntsmen and Huntresses. A medal of dishonor, if there ever was one.

And all because he was too lazy to punch four digits into a keypad.

Neo heaved with relief as ten seconds passed, and no communication signal came in. That meant that a miracle had occurred, and they still hadn't been noticed (officially) by the _Beacon._

It was then that the _Beacon _came into view. The ship was massive, at least three hundred meters long and one-hundred twenty meters wide. Every few meters, a round porthole peered out into space. Neo could see through the windows clearly, catching a glimpse of the Huntsmen and Huntresses walking around and doing daily tasks. Some were firing weapons, others were tuning weapons. Some were walking down the corridors, others were performing inspections.

The entire ship listed to one side as Neo diverted most of the power to the RCS thrusters, rotating the ship 90 degrees. Emerald lost her balance and fell on the hard deck, and Mercury ran to help her.

"I'm OK, Merc." Emerald coughed as she levered herself up, using Mercury's shoulder as a crutch. Mercury sighed and mentally ran through the possibilities. Hopefully everything would go well.

Thirty seconds later, the intercom crackled with static. "Thirty seconds to breach. It's gonna get bumpy. Neo recommends you brace now."

The twenty-strong population of the _Delusion _did exactly what the interpreter had said. Even though assault shuttles had built in shock dampers, and even though the breach would take place at half speed, the shock dampers weren't 100% effective. When the shuttles were first used, it wasn't uncommon to see broken noses, broken bones, and even concussions from the jarring shock.

Cinder would prefer to avoid any interruptions, and before the raid, she made this fact very clear.

"If any of you screw up, disobey a superior, or jeopardize this mission in any way, your ass will be on a platter down to Remnant and you'll be picking up Grimm shit from the woods until you're fifty. Understood?"  
The grey-helmeted sea of grunts had nodded in assent before boarding the small shuttle. Now, they were lined up, facing the wall with their hands crossed over their shoulders. Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury did the same.

Twenty seconds after the brace call, Emerald heard the shuttle's engines whine as it spooled up for half-throttle. The original breaches were made during full throttle, but this had a tendency to destroy the entire shuttle. _Unstoppable force meets immovable object…_

_CLANG. _

Emerald was jolted out of her reverie as the entire ship shuddered violently on impact. She was suddenly grateful she was in the brace position, as a huge metal slab detached from the ceiling and smashed into the wall opposite, right into the spot where Emerald would have been had she been standing. An unfortunate grunt was the closest one to the impact point. Although he was in the brace position, the extreme deceleration hurled him across the width of the shuttle. He slammed into the wall helmet-first with a horrific thud and slumped on the floor. Where he had impacted, there was now a five-centimeter deep dent in the metal, courtesy of his helmet.

The vibration lasted only a few seconds, but it seemed to last forever – a grinding screech that prickled the hair on the back of her neck and rippled through her teeth. Then it was over.

_Wsssssh!_

Instantly, Emerald heard a loud hiss, indicating the formation of a solid seal. That was good – it meant the breach was complete and they could board.

Cinder got to her feet and quickly ran to check on the grunt, who was only dazed from the impact, as the intercom hissed in again:  
"Neo confirms good seal. External cam shows no visual of enemies. Grab your blasters, grenades, whatever you need. Let's blow the _Beacon _to hell!"  
"Melodramatic," Mercury observed, as the grey-armored grunts erupted in cheers, holding their ES-4s high.

"Do you think they'll consider this a new timeline?" Emerald said. "BB? Battle of Beacon?"  
"Oum if I know," Mercury puffed as he hefted the giant AMR over his shoulder. "Oum, this thing is _heavy._"

Just then, a much fainter vibration rippled through the ship. The _Dream _had arrived, breaching into the hull. Cinder realized that she had no time to lose.

"Blasters, grenades, helmets," she ordered. Fortunately, the troops could translate. These three words meant that they needed to load their blasters, slip grenades on the bandolier, and don the helmets. The process only took seconds, thanks to several rehearsals on Remnant. This was no rehearsal, however – it was the real thing.

The door whooshed open with a hydraulic hiss of pneumatics. Directly ahead was the hull of the _Beacon._ Two of the grunts ran forward with plasma cutting torches, firing them up and cutting directly into the metal. It only took five seconds for the plasma torches to cut through the hull like butter. The slab of metal fell, opening a link into the ship.

The cockpit door opened, revealing Neo and the interpreter. Neo's left eye was bright pink, while her other eye was black. A striking contrast of black hair and pink hair divided her face into two halves, while she hefted a pink parasol in her hands and an AMR in a scabbard on her back. The interpreter was wearing a helmet, making it impossible to tell who it was, but they hefted an AMR in a pair of hands.

Neo and the interpreter stopped and raised their weapons in the air. Everyone knew what this meant. _Follow them. _The grunts moved in a single-file line, following Neo and the interpreter through the hull breach. Last up were Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. Mercury was the last one out. The visor in his helmet rendered the world a clear shade of radioactive green.

At the top of his screen was a HUD, displaying him as a green arrow and allies – in this case, everyone else from the Queen's Pawns – as bright green dots. Confirmed locations were marked with a red dot, and last known locations were marked with a yellow dot. A black dot meant a fellow Queen's Pawn was KIA. The radar arm swept across the screen rapidly, looking for threats.

There were about sixty green dots in one giant clump to the far side of the ship. That was good – it meant that the White Fang and Torchwick's reinforcements had arrived and were ready to begin the assault.

At the center of his screen were a pair of crosshairs. Once he'd lock on to something, the crosshairs would plot an outline of his target and identify kill spots and spots to shoot for capture/incapacitation.

On the bottom of the screen was his ammo count, linked up to the AMR, and above that, an interior map of the _Beacon _as well as their current location. Another helpful piece of software. On the left was the Universal Time and his vital signs – heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen level.

The group moved silently through the bright hallways, hands clenched on blasters. Each hallway had two strips of magnalights burning along the corridor and electrical cables running on the walls. Magnalights were magnetic lighting strips. Essentially, they could be placed anywhere, and were cheaper than normal lights, but had a slightly dimmer lighting.

The rest of the _Beacon_'s utility corridor was tiling, humming machines, and electrical wiring. Mercury believed that Huntsmen and Huntresses weren't that great at interior decorating. He was also suddenly very glad that the _Delusion _hadn't severed any pipes or wires as it breached – that would've been a disaster before the assault was underway.

At each bend, Neo would hold up a clenched fist before peeking around the corner. If the path was clear, she'd motion for them to move onward. If it wasn't – well, that's what the _suppressed _setting on the AMR was for.

The _suppressed _setting allowed for the bolt to be held in a secondary chamber while the gases were vented off before firing. It was far quieter than a regular blaster shot, and could kill at close range, even though everyone had been provided with knives in an emergency.

The group continued onwards, quietly making their way into the belly of the ship. Mercury glanced at the interior map and groaned inwardly when he saw the twisted maze of passages that they had to get through in order to get to the bridge. The utility corridors were massive – it could take hours.

Mercury, Emerald, and Cinder knew extremely basic sign language, so they weren't surprised when Neo turned to face the group of goons.

_Set blasters to suppressed_, Neo signed.

"Blasters on suppressed," the interpreter whisper-translated through the helmet comm for the benefit of the non-sign language speaking group. The group did as told, hefting their ES-4s and sliding back a switch near the muzzle.

_We've got one crew member. _Neo signed. _We'll need to take him out. _At the same moment, a solitary red dot appeared on Mercury's HUD, very close to him. The mechanic was around the next corner, twenty meters away. Fortunately, the dot didn't seem to be moving. That was good.

Cinder's voice cut into the helmet-comm. "Neo says we've got one crew member. We should take him out."

"Wait, I've got a better idea," Mercury cut in. "We should subdue him, ask for the direction of the bridge, and then lock him in a locker. That way we can get to our target faster, without bloodshed."

"Good idea," Cinder said. "OK. Neo, you'll creep up on him and keep him from hitting the alarm. Mercury, when Neo binds him, you can interrogate him. Ask him where the bridge is located. Use force if you have to."

The plan was done, then. Everyone else except Neo and Mercury retreated behind a row of utility lockers, where they couldn't be seen in the event that something went wrong. Mercury switched to external speaker comm, making sure to use the lowest volume setting.

Mercury followed directly behind Neo, his AMR at the ready. The mechanic was blissfully unaware of their presence, quietly tuning a few wires on a power conduit.

"Finally," he grunted, pulling out a long spool of wiring before wiping oil-stained hands on his battered jeans. "Got to go find a new wi-"

He stopped short as he turned around to find Neo and Mercury. In a flash, Mercury's visor was calculating the shots as his crosshair turned red. Mercury saw a circle appear on the silhouette's arm, shoulder, and leg. Xs covered the torso and head.

The circles represented zones where the target was likely to survive the initial shot. Xs were kill shots – the opposite.

The mechanic looked about thirty, and had a young face. On his shoulder was the patch of the _Beacon_, while his name tag read _OTTE. _It was his first time dealing with a situation like this, so instead of hitting the emergency alarm, he looked at them with confusion.

"Who are you?"

Confusion rapidly turned into panic as he saw Neo with her AMR, and Mercury with his. By then, it was too late. He made a grab for the emergency alarm button on the wall, but Neo was faster. She launched a brutal roundhouse kick, hitting Otte in the torso. As he groaned, clutching his stomach, Mercury brought his AMR and aimed it at Otte's head.

"Hands up," Mercury growled. "Don't make me blow your head off."

Otte shakily put his hands up, but by then Neo was already behind him. He winced as his arm was expertly pulled behind his back.

Neo tightened the arm lock as Mercury jerked his head in the direction of a utility locker, pointing his AMR at it for emphasis. "This way."  
Otte shook his head defiantly. "I'm not going-"

Mercury drew back the AMR, then smashed it into Otte's ribs. If Neo wasn't holding his arms, he would have dropped straight to the ground. As it was, Neo nearly collapsed from the sudden strain.

_Careful with the gun, idiot_, she would have signed if she had both hands to use.

As Neo hauled the sobbing mechanic up from the metal floor, Mercury realized he needed to be a bit stricter.

"Do you really want to die today?" Mercury said, pointing the AMR at Otte's head. "Neo, put him in the locker."

Neo glared at him, before bundling Otte face-first into the wall of a utility locker and spinning him around, breaking the lock momentarily to hold his shoulders against the wall.

"What's the PIN for this locker?"

Now that he had regained some of his senses, Otte made the worst decision possible. The mechanic shakily levered himself to Mercury's helmet level, and said, in a voice with clear rage:

"Go fuck yourself. I'd rather die than tell you scumbags-"

Neo grabbed the mechanic's head and slammed it into the metal wall of the locker as hard as she could. There was a deafening clang and Otte yelled in pain. Thanks to his helmet's zoom-vision, Mercury saw that Otte's pupils were dilated – a sign of a concussion.

Mercury decided to ramp up the tension once more. He pointed the AMR at Otte's knee and clicked the safety off for emphasis. "The next words out of your mouth better be the locker PIN, or it's gonna take a miracle to get this bloodstain out of the floor. Ten… nine…. eight…."  
"Thoo nine thoo thickth" Otte muttered, trickles of blood snaking out of his nose and mouth.

"And where's the bridge?"

"Third floor, thecond corridorth".

"Thanks, you've been very helpful" Mercury grinned as Neo drew back and threw a punch. Otte crumpled to the ground as Neo's punch smashed into his head.

Mercury clicked the safety off his AMR as he punched _2926 _into the keypad. Fortunately for him, the mechanic had been telling the truth. He stepped aside as the door opened, and Neo dragged the unconscious mechanic into the locker after stealing his ID card. As Mercury moved to shut it, his visor recognized Otte and displayed the mechanic's vital signs. Otte was alive, at least.

Mercury shut the locker, keying _2926 _into the keypad again before he smashed the AMR against the keyboard as hard as he could. The keypad broke free from the locker, trailing wires and conduits. Satisfied that the mechanic wouldn't be in good condition any time soon, Mercury switched back to internal comms. "All clear."

"Did he put up any fight?" Cinder asked.

"Yes, but my AMR put an end to that. We know where the bridge is. Third floor, second corridor."

"Let's go."

Unfortunately, their stealth plan came to a very abrupt end as they passed through a door. Neo slid, Neo saw something that made her very quickly hurry back.

_We've got a lot of officers. We should hit them hard._

"This is the quickest path to the bridge." Cinder pointed out through the helmet comms. "We need to go in hard and fast. Turn suppression off."

Eighteen blaster switches clicked in response.

"But is it really a good idea?," Emerald questioned. "Look at how many there are!"  
It was true – there were so many red dots in her HUD that they appeared to be one singular mass. The group, however, didn't have time for debate, as they heard the voice of two officers.

"I could swear I heard something." the first one said.  
"It's just the door." the second one replied, dismissively.

"You know how Ozpin is a stickler for protocol. We've got to check out anything."

The door hissed open as the two officers kept on talking.

_Please Oum let them go away,_ Mercury prayed. _Please Oum let them go away. Please Oum let them go away…_

Unfortunately, his prayer wouldn't be answered. The first one looked shocked as he saw the seething mass of helmets and blasters. It was Neo who jumped up from her hiding spot next to the door. Pulling the AMR from her scabbard, she smashed it into the first guard's skull. The stunned guard could do nothing as she pulled out her parasol and swiped it across the first guard's unprotected throat. Blood pooled out onto the deck as the red dot on Mercury's HUD disappeared.

Kill confirmed.

In the milliseconds before the second guard's death, one thing ran through his head.

_Take the bastards down._

He pulled the trigger on his BP-18 as Neo leapt towards him.

_Bzap!_

The sound echoed around the hallway and Mercury saw the other guards reach for their guns. They had just lost their element of surprise, as one spotted Mercury. He tried to return to cover, but it was too late.

The bolt bounced harmlessly off of Neo's Aura. Neo stabbed the parasol directly through the second guard's heart just as Mercury heard the call of a panicked guard:

"OPEN FIRE!"

"Aaaah!"

Weiss Schnee awoke with a startled yelp as Ruby Rose blew a whistle. The heiress toppled off the edge of the bed, realized she wasn't on the ground, and let gravity decide what happened next. Her head hit the floor with a comical _bonk!_

"Ow!" Weiss groaned, rubbing her aching head with both hands. "What in the world is wrong with you?"

Icy blue eyes met excited silver as Ruby let out a yell of "Banzai!" _Whatever that means._  
Weiss stared at her like she was a droid that needed an oil change. "You do realize it's not wake-up time yet?"  
"Pffffft," Ruby dismissively waved Weiss away as she blew the whistle again and yelled "Banzaaaai!"

Blake Belladonna leaped out of her bed, anger on her face, and smacked the whistle as far as she could. The green energy field near the edge of her room put an end to the flying whistle, but Blake's anger was clear.

"Blow that whistle one more time, Ruby… and I swear…." Blake muttered. _Idiot._  
"Ugh, Rubes. You know some of us are trying to sleep, right?" Yang Xiao Long groaned, giving up all of her attempts to sleep as she threw the blanket off, blinking at the bright ceiling lights.

Just then, however, the four huntresses were jolted awake by a loud announcement. "Emergency lockdown. Emergency lockdown. This is not a drill. All huntresses to battle stations."

The piercing emergency alarm rang out as the room's lighting turned bright crimson. Inactive siren lights mounted along the wall activated and screamed.

_Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah!_

"Grab your weapons!" Ruby and Blake shouted in unison as Weiss scrambled to retrieve Myrtenaster from the cabinet. "We're under attack!"

=END OF CHAPTER 1=

**A/N:**

**Hello everyone! Welcome to the first chapter of _The Beacon Assault. _I started a brief draft of this on December 31, 2019. I guess you could say it took me a whole decade… OK, fine. Bad joke.**

**As you may have noticed, Beacon Academy is now the _Beacon _ship, and humans and Faunus are on the ship together. I did include some of the main and secondary characters' weapons, but there are still some RWBY weapons in there. "It's also a gun", after all.**

**As for the setting – I wanted to write an actual sci-fi story, but I thought that a fic would just work better. In fact, there are quite a lot of people on this story that could have been replaced with my OCs (from my own sci-fi stories) and this could have been a story on FictionPress. **

**Now that I think about it… eh, whatever, it's better as a fanfic anyway.**

**I was initially going to leave _"OPEN FIRE" _on a cliffhanger, but I expanded it just a little bit to include Rublake's line. (That's not a ship, just a combination of their names.)**

**Originally, Neo was going to talk (she would be a bad pilot if she couldn't), but the interpreter idea worked just as well.**

**That's about it. I do have a concrete plan for the rest of the story, though. Next chapter should hopefully come within a few days.**

**Over and out!**


	2. Assault on the Bridge

**January 3, 2256**

**0 BB**

**21:17 Hours**

**Onboard _Beacon _Huntsman Transport Carrier**

**Near Remnant IV**

The lockdown alarm was still blaring and the sirens were still flashing, casting the bridge in a bright red light.

Captain Ozpin brought up the security camera feed from his position on the bridge, unease evident on his face as he watched the battle. He sipped his coffee cup as he deftly navigated through the security feeds. A grainy, fuzz-obscured live feed greeted him from the _Beacon_'s bridge junction.

The battle wasn't going well. It couldn't even be called a battle – it was more of a slaughter. The security guards outnumbered the Queen's Pawns three to one, but they were unorganized. They were mainly rookies who had learned to aim and fire a gun only two sectons ago, whereas the Queen's Pawns were the best of the best.

The Queen's Pawns weren't the cream of the crop – they were the cream of the cream of the crop. And they carried the best blasters on the market – ES-4s and AMR-106s – while the security guards only had puny BP-12s.

The BP-12 was, for all intents and purposes, a peashooter. Armach Industries had attempted to make a portable self-defense laser gun, but almost all of them had a factory defect from manufacturing. A critical error had been made when assembling the power cell, and the pistols were woefully underpowered. Armach had issued a recall, but the Republican contractors happily bought the surplus.

Pistols against machine guns – no chance. The security guards seemed to realize this too. When the gunfire started, all attempts to return fire were suddenly swept from their brains, and they only had one thing in mind: _Run._

_This is why contractors shouldn't run armies!_ Ozpin ranted, giving a brief mental profanity-laced discourse. _I swear to Oum, contractors should have to apologize to trees for reoxygenating the air they deplete with their idiocy. _He turned back to the monitor, gulping down the last dregs of coffee.

Most of them - about forty-five of them - did the safe thing, which was to run like hell, diving behind the occasional cover here and there. The only cover that was anywhere close to viable was a few rib-shaped frames of metal. It was better than catching a bolt, at least.

The fifteen or so that did return fire – slightly more foolish than their comrades - were very quickly dealt with.

The very lucky ones ended up with blaster bolts through their arms and knees. They were out of the fight, but not out of their life.

The lucky ones caught headshots. Their life ended on the concrete deck, but at least it was a quick and relatively merciful death.

The unlucky ones caught chest shots or gut shots. Blood pooled on the concrete floor as their lives ebbed away. Ozpin was thankful that the camera feed didn't have any audio recording as he saw the unlucky soldiers' faces contort with pain.

The very unlucky ones ended up with grenades landing near them. Ozpin discreetly put down his coffee cup as he watched an unfortunate security guard and two of his comrades explode in a shower of bloody mist, immediately followed by a fireball of green plasma.

The extremely unlucky ones were fireballed as Cinder absorbed the shots with her Aura and casually tossed a fireball at them, as if she was shooting a three-pointer. Soldiers frantically rolled around, trying to extinguish their burning uniforms.

On the camera feed, Ozpin could see the survivors behind cover adopting a different tactic – poking the BP-12 out from behind cover and blindfiring. This seemed to work for a while, until a BP-18 pistol shot blew a guard's hand off in a mist of blood.

The blindfiring ceased instantly, and just then, one of the soldiers realized there was a camera pointing at them. The muzzle of the ES-4 jerked upward, there was a brief flash of light, and static buzzed on the monitor.

"First Officer Glynda!" Ozpin said into his headset. "We may have a problem. We've just lost the cam. Initiate full lockdown. Do _not_ let them get into the bridge."

"Understood," came the curt voice of First Officer Glynda Goodwitch. "I'm sending out an immediate Priority One alert to all vessels-"

"I'll do that," Ozpin interjected. "You can query all of their Scrolls. Give them the Code Black alarm. Tell them to get their weapons. I know one thing for certain- we aren't going down without a fight. Those bastards attacked _our _ship, and we're going to make them pay."

"Yes, sir." Glynda's voice hissed out in a flurry of static. Ozpin sighed wearily, rubbing a palm into his forehead as he took a look at himself through the monitor's reflective screen. Age had not been kind to him. Ozpin was pushing sixty, but he had wrinkles on his face, grey hair, and a lurid green suit. The cane which he had carried for so long now rested next to him. He picked it up, making sure the chamber was loaded.

"Well, old friend," Ozpin muttered softly. "It appears that we have work to do."

Ozpin closed the security feed, trying hard not to think about the massacre, as he opened the ship's AI system.

He put the cane down and spoke into his headset:

"Emergency distress beacon. Authorization code: checkmate."

The ship's AI quickly verified Ozpin's request and authenticator code.

"Voice authorization completed. Please provide fingerprint authentication."

Ozpin dutifully pushed his right thumb on the monitor. The infrared screener detected his pulse and the exact markings of his finger. The _pulse _reading meant that even if someone cut Ozpin's thumb off to gain access, the system would deny entry.

The monitor beeped again, then the lighting shifted to a reassuring green.

"Fingerprint verification confirmed. Captain Ozpin, please name the type of beacon and the emergency. You have one minute. Message begins… now." the AI synthetically droned.

"EDB. Priority One. Orbit over Beacon IV. Ship attacked by hostiles. Motivation unknown. Exact count unknown. Mass casualties suffered. Hostiles are armed and extremely dangerous, approach with caution. End message."  
The type of beacon was also important. There were three types of emergency beacons: priority one, priority two, and priority three.

_Priority one _basically meant: _all ships, get the fuck over here now, we're about to die._ It was only meant to be used in situations of extreme danger – like a fire onboard, failure with the oxygen system, attack, or something else. _Priority two _meant "I'm in danger, but not extreme danger." In other words, a priority two signal could be sent if the captain had _some_ control over the ship. _Priority three _meant "Something's gone wrong." It was the lowest priority, used if there wasn't anything life-threatening.

"Message sent. Broadcasting to all ships now," the AI said.

"Terminate EDB recording," Ozpin enunciated clearly. The monitor went dark immediately.

"Glynda, I've sent the beacon," Ozpin keyed into her headset and spoke to her. "Make sure to send the message to their Scrolls-"

"I can't!" Glynda said, panic evident in her voice. "Something, or someone's, jamming our transmissions!"

-/-/-

It was the vilest thing Emerald had ever seen.

The survivors – the ones who hadn't been shot to death or blown up – now huddled behind two rib-shaped frames of metal. She could hear Cinder directing the forces through the helmet comm.

"Fire around both groups. _Around, _not at them. We want to suppress them unless worst comes to worst. Desperation can be a hell of a motivator."

The Queen's Pawns hefted their ES-4s, pouring a torrent of fire into ceiling panels, conduits, and the floor around the survivors. None of the survivors dared to move. They were pinned down between a rock and a hard place. Or, more specifically, between unsafe cover and fatal bullets.

Emerald's stomach lurched as she stepped into a small pool of blood, left by a recently dead security guard who lay lifeless on the floor. She gingerly stepped over the body, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. A quick glance to her left showed Mercury doing the same.

She and Mercury seemed to be the only ones bothered by this. The rest of the Queen's Pawns strolled into the corridor with a complete lack of care for the corpses and puddles of blood on the hallways. Emerald saw a grunt kick aside the body of some poor security guard, while another shoved a corpse out of the way without bothering to move around it.

Rage boiled up in Emerald's body. She wanted nothing more than to tell all of them to leave the corpses alone, but they probably wouldn't care, and neither would Cinder. A quick glance showed that Neo was the only one besides Emerald and Mercury who treated the corpses with respect.

Roman chose that moment to fire _Melodic Cudgel_, as a whistling sound scared Emerald out of her wits. A ball of flame erupted from the cane's muzzle, impacting just above the survivors.

Roman laughed gleefully, loading another shell into the cane. Over the helmet comm – H-comm - it sounded like the screech of a demented harpy.

"Calm down, Roman." Cinder ordered. "These security guards won't be any fun if they get atomized." She then directed her speech at Neo. "Neo, you'll be the negotiator. Turn the lip-reader on and put your external speaker up."

Neo did as she was asked – first setting the external speaker output to maximum, then engaging the lip reader. The _lip reader _consisted of a camera – the Repub's latest model – and a text-to-speech module. Very helpful for people who couldn't speak – either by injury, or by nature. In Neo's case, it was the latter. Of course, no translation would ever be 100% perfect. But it was either this, or Cinder would have to act as the translator as Neo signed, which would be slow, painful, and massively inefficient.

"All units, cease fire. We'll move in and Neo will do the talking." Cinder ordered over H-comm. The report of ES-4s stopped immediately, replaced by an eerie silence and the groans of a few surviving guards. Despite being shot to all hell, the fans and coolant system whined in the background.

The _Beacon_ now looked like a total war zone. Dead corpses (mostly surrounded by pools of blood) lay in the hallway, slumped over in their final moments. More blood dotted the walls and ceiling. Blaster fire scorched and riddled every exposed area, while holes pockmarked conduits, walls, and twisted pieces of metal. Pride of place went to a giant three-meter wide scorch mark on one of the walls, courtesy of _Melodic Cudgel._

Just before Cinder turned the corner to where the remaining guards huddled, she stumbled into the view of a camera for a split second. Neo quickly rectified this, bringing her AMR up and firing a shot into the cylindrical sphere. The camera exploded as Cinder, now confident, went around the corner followed by Neo.

There were around forty-five men and women there. Most of them huddled in a circle, in a pool of blood. Some had their BP-12s out, but none attempted to fire. A wise move, on their part.

A lot of the survivors had bloodied faces thanks to the skirmish that had taken place. Some had assorted scars, others had burns. A few had ash in their hair, and quite a lot were missing a hand, arm, or leg due to an injury. Some of the injuries had strips of clothing wrapped around them. Others were raw and bleeding.

Neo stepped forward, lowering the AMR but not aiming it at anyone in particular. Though no one could see it due to her helmet, she cleared her throat and began to speak.  
"You are lucky that you retreated. Your comrades, who weren't as wise, are dead. We do not intend to kill you. We would just like to know the location of the bridge." the synthesizer boomed, as the electronic voice reverberated through the hallway.

One woman tried to murmur something, but the crowd had already begun muttering to themselves. In seconds, a wave of noise drowned out the answers to any of Neo's questions.

"Please be quiet," the synthesizer droned. Apparently, it was too quiet, as only a few people shut up while the rest of the guards continued jabbering amongst themselves.

"_QUIET!" _the synthesizer screamed as Neo lost her temper. All talk stopped instantly. "You have ten seconds to tell me where the bridge is, or all of you will die!"  
To emphasize her point, Neo levelled the AMR at the giant huddle. "Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two,"

"Alright, alright! I'll talk! It's the third floor, second corridor. They've put a full lockdown in," blurted a man in the crowd, who, evidently, didn't want to die.

"Son of a bitch," someone else whispered, too low for anyone but the man to hear.

"Thank you," the synthesizer said. "None of you will die today."

Neo pulled a concussor grenade from her utility belt. The concussor grenade was essentially a grenade with a magnesium mixture. Once detonated, it would cause a blinding flash and induce unconsciousness for the next two hours.

"Nighty night," the synthesizer droned, as Neo lobbed the grenade into the mass of guards. Only a few had regained enough willpower to make a lazy dash for it. The rest stared dumbly at the bouncing sphere until it exploded.

Thanks to the Huntsman helmets, all of the Queen's Pawns were safe, even Neo – who had been staring directly at the detonation. The guards, however, instantly fell to their knees, then pitched forward and lay flat on the ground. They would be unconscious for two hours and have no memory of what happened when they woke up.

"Let's go to the bridge," Cinder ordered over H-comm, and the Queen's Pawns began their slow trudge to the bridge.

-/-/-

Ruby said she had wanted class to be over. But she didn't _exactly _mean it like this.

Blake, Weiss, and Yang were all huddled in the middle of the room, frantically clutching their weapons. Ruby sat on the bed, Crescent Rose firmly in her hands as she heard the loud report of clattering gunfire.

"What's the situation, Rubes?" Yang asked her, making sure that Ember Celica was loaded. "Does it look bad?"  
"I can't see what's going on. Let me access the video feed on my Scroll." She slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out the wafer-thin Scroll.

It took Ruby fifteen seconds to key the PIN into her Scroll and bring up the security feed from the corridor. She could see that it wasn't going well at all. The black-suited soldiers were pouring fire into the guards, who just couldn't keep up. Most of them retreated, but some lucky souls managed to get behind cover. The ones that didn't were cut down in an overwhelming wave of blaster fire.

"Well?" Weiss demanded. "What does it look like?"  
"T-they're getting massacred," Ruby admitted, trying to make a running commentary for Weiss's sake. "There's people pinned down who managed to get away. They're just opening fire – someone died – and-"  
The muzzle of an ES-4 pointed at the camera, and Ruby jerked back in surprise as a flash appeared, followed immediately by static.  
"No!" Ruby cried, punching the bed in frustration.  
"What happened?" Weiss repeated.

"They just shot the camera out."  
"What are their weapons?" The question came from Blake, who sat cross-legged on the rug as she calmly swept bullets into an ammo clip.

"ES-4s and I think I saw an AMR-106." Ruby replied, before seeing an uncharacteristic look of shock on Blake's face.

"Yeah, we're not fighting them." Yang pointed out. "Look, I'm being optimistic. But Ruby has a slow-fire scythe, I have a shotgun gauntlet, Weiss has a sword-"

"Speak for yourself!" the heiress hissed, clutching Myrtenaster in a white-knuckle grip.  
"Shut it, princess," Yang retorted, before continuing her train of thought. "And Blake has-"

"A katana and a pistol," Blake finished the sentence, slipping the ammo clip into Gambol Shroud before strapping the katana to the pistol. "Yang's right. Our best bet is to go for one of the escape pods."

"Don't we need a droid to activate it?" Ruby asked.

Weiss let out a derisive laugh. "Oh, that's a great idea. I'll just call a droid from hyperspace. Brilliant."  
"Do you have a better idea?" Yang snapped.

"Please, would you stop bickering?" Blake groaned, finally getting up from her spot on the rug. "We're going to find an escape pod. We're going to go into it. We'll find a droid or two if we have to."

"Hopefully, a translator bot too!" Ruby piped in.

"And we're staying the Oum away from the bridge. I know they'll go for the bridge." Yang interjected.

"Remember that time they talked about the Overlord Incident?"

The four girls all nodded solemly. The _Overlord Incident _was a colloquial name for the attempted terror attack on the Republican House of Wisdom that took place on April 17, 2209.

A group of rebels had flown their shuttle directly into the _Defiance, _an _Overlord-_class cruiser, where it had been orbiting Naris. They had managed to storm the bridge, kill the bridge crew, and manually gain control of the ship. From there, they had jumped to Remnant. Once they got into Remnant space, the Republic's urgent pleas for information went unanswered. The Republic scrambled a squadron of Sidewinders to deal with the threat, but the _Defiance _had simply evaded them with its higher speed. (The Sidewinders would be retired immediately afterwards.) From there, the _Defiance_ had been steered through reentry – and right into the House of Wisdom. Though reentry slowed it down, the ship was still traveling at Mach 2 on impact. The _Defiance_ sliced into the House of Wisdom like a knife through butter, while the inertia of the ship took it over a kilometer before it ground to a halt. Sixty civilians died. Had the Republic not issued an immediate evacuation call, the death toll would have numbered in the tens of thousands.

This grim fact hung in the girls' brains as they realized the best chance of survival was with an escape pod. But that would be desertion. If they were found, they would be expelled from Huntress Training, or the _Beacon. _The former seemed far more likely, given that they weren't sure that the _Beacon _would exist after today's events.

"Who wants to stay and fight?" Ruby questioned.

Nobody put their hand up.

"And who wants to go to the escape pods?"

Everybody put their hand up.

"Then it's settled. We go to the escape pods, hopefully get a droid among the way, and get out of here." Ruby gazed at the ceiling, running a few mental calculations. "We've got enough fuel to get to Remnant."

"Yeah," Weiss said, before everyone else had a chance to say anything. "This is a great plan with absolutely no chance of catastrophic failure."

"Stow it, Weiss."

-/-/-

The Queen's Pawns had finally arrived at the bridge. The bridge itself was secured by a bulkhead and a battery of devices.

After the Overlord Incident, the Republic had realized that keeping a bridge unsecured was a really terrible idea, and invested in better security. All ships now had fingerprint verification, DNA identification, and a double bulkhead for redundant security. This was in addition to the swipe card and PIN needed to activate the bridge anyway.

Neo solved both of the scanning issues. She put two BP-18 rounds into the fingerprint scanner as it exploded with a shower of sparks. She then smeared a small amount of blood on her finger (no one dared to ask where it came from) and dipped it on the scanner. The scanner hummed and then flashed green.

Cinder stepped up to the exterior bulkhead, raising her hand as a ball of fire formed in it. Neo wisely moved away as Cinder tossed the fireball into the bulkhead. The fireball ate away at the center, but there wasn't enough room to work with.

Roman fixed that by raising his cane and firing. A piercing whistle was followed by a loud boom as the bulkhead ripped itself to shreds.

Cinder smashed her palm into the keypad before hauling the bulkhead open. Neo rushed inside the bridge, her AMR at the ready.

The bridge was made up of metal flooring, LCD panels, holoscreens and harried controllers. Four large panes of safety glass provided the only protection between the ship and the freezing void of space.

"_Hands up!" _the synthesizer screamed, as the controllers saw Neo exit the doorway.

By then, the rest of the Queen's Pawns, including Emerald and Mercury, had charged through the opening. Most of the controllers did the wise thing and raised their hands up, but Neo noticed a female technician surreptitiously fumble for a blaster.

She fixed that problem, putting a hole in the technician's chest and another one in the technician's head. Blood and brains sprayed against the wall as the technician crumpled to the floor.

Neo put a shot into the lockdown alarm and the wailing siren stopped instantly. The red light faded to white and a computerized voice soothed _Lockdown lifted, lockdown lifted._

"Drop your guns or you die," the synthesizer announced menacingly. "No second chances."

Everyone else did what they were told, pulling pistols out of their holsters before lying down next to their workstations.  
"Good. Who is the captain of this vessel?"

"I am," said Ozpin from his position in the corner. He had dropped his cane, but his emerald eyes burned with rage. His grey hair seemed ready to ignite, and his teeth were bared. Cinder walked up to him and removed her helmet slowly, smirking as she did so. The sight of Cinder seemed to fill Ozpin with even more rage. His face was bright red and he was muttering things that definitely weren't compliments.

"Cinder."

"Captain Ozpin."

"I should have known a bitch like you would do this. You're the only person with power around here. I knew it as soon as I saw that ridiculous saboteur Roman with you."

Roman walked forward and removed his helmet, albeit faster than Cinder. He glared down at Ozpin, a malevolent smirk on his face.

"Ridiculous saboteur?" Roman mocked. "I don't find that to be very nice, Ozpinny. I'm the one with the power now, so you better listen."

Neo shot him a glare of irritation, but the effect was lost under her helmet.

"What Roman is so nicely trying to say," Cinder purred, "is that you will set a course for Naris and we will release your lovely Huntresses."

"_Never,_" Ozpin growled through gritted teeth.

"Ozpinny," Cinder mocked, using Roman's favorite nickname. "I understand that you must be upset. We did attack your ship, after all."

"You and what army?" Ozpin growled.

Just then, Adam Taurus strolled into the room, followed by thirty White Fang members. All of them wore armor with the Fang insignia spray-painted onto them. Their armor was stained with blood, and they carried ES-2s. Adam himself wore a black shirt and red vest with his personal logo, and he carried a giant red sword. The sight of him caused Ozpin to deflate very slightly.

"Adam Taurus!" Ozpin growled. "I should have known. Bastard like you couldn't let bygones be bygones. Fucking murderer!"

Adam simply waved away his argument as though he was an irritating fly.

"Anyway," Cinder said. "Ozpinny. Be a dear and take us to Naris."

"And should I refuse?" Ozpin glared.

Neo's answer was immediate. She threw a punch directly at Ozpin's face. Sixty years hadn't been kind to his reflexes, and his nose broke like an eggshell. The unconscious captain crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from his nose.

"Your captain is incapacitated and unable to carry out his duties as commanding officer of this vessel," Cinder announced. "Who is the next person in your line of command?"

"Me," Glynda Goodwitch said from her position on the floor. She levered herself up and walked towards Cinder. Once she had gotten within five meters of Cinder, Neo pointed the AMR at her head.

"Name and rank." Cinder spat.

"Glynda Goodwitch, First Officer."

"Well, First Officer Goodwitch, perhaps you could be a better sport than Captain Ozpin." Cinder indicated the unconscious, bleeding form of Ozpin behind her.

Glynda wanted nothing more than to stab Cinder in the neck until she choked on her own blood, but she nodded and said, "Yes, Cinder."

"Brilliant. Then why don't you take us to Naris? Just tell the engine room that the lockdown has been lifted and that you want to change course."  
"I don't think I should do that."  
"Oh, really?" Cinder mocked. "And why not?"

"Republican Army Handbook, chapter 6, paragraph 2, line 7. '_In the event of forcible intrusion into the bridge by hostiles, Republican Army officials may not aid, assist or abet hostiles in any way, shape, or form.'" _Glynda quoted.

"Oh, yes, the handbook." Cinder smirked. "First Officer Goodwitch, would you like to know what they don't teach you in the handbook? They don't teach you that if you refuse to obey us, all of your crewmates will die. They don't teach you that if you refuse to obey us, you'll be shot and left for dead while we set the course ourself."

Cinder leaned in closer until she was barely twenty centimeters from Glynda's face. "I'm offering you a chance to live. I suggest you take it."

The hatred on Glynda's face was unmistakeable, but she nodded. "I take it. I'll inform the engine room."

"Very good. Now," Cinder continued, and Glynda felt her breath seize up as the AMR's muzzle pressed against the side of her temple, "if you lie to us or if you do anything else but take us to Naris, you will die. Your crewmates will die. Do I make myself clear?"  
Glynda nodded. The muzzle was lifted from her temple, and she allowed herself to breathe again.

It was only thirty steps to the navigation console, but it felt like thirty years. She didn't want to look back. She knew that if she did anything else, she'd get lit up with bullets.

She had Aura, but most of the controllers did not. And Aura was useless against a large enough amount of blaster bolts.

She stepped up to the console and activated the voice recognition AI. "This is FO Goodwitch. Connect me to the engine room, please."

"_Connection established," _the AI droned as Glynda heard a few voices from the engine room.

"This is engine, what's going on, FO Goodwitch? We heard the lockdown, but it's gone now."

"Don't worry yourselves about that. Set a course for Naris."

"Aye-aye, Cap."

Thirty seconds later, the large LCD said that the engines were on full power and the ship was headed to Naris.

_Tell her to deactivate the distress beacon,_ Neo signed.

"Brilliant. Oh, and one more thing," Cinder's voice came up from behind her. "Deactivate the distress beacon, if you please."

The emotional part of Glynda wanted to say _Go fuck yourself_, but the rational part of her wanted to live. So she chose to live.

"Authorization code: checkmate. Cancel priority one distress beacon."

"Distress Beacon cancelled."

"Congratulations, you survived!" Cinder said as Neo clapped mockingly. "Now, just sit here and be a good girl while we deal with the rest of your controllers."

-/-/-

"Hands behind your back," Mercury grunted as he pulled out a ziptie from his utility belt. Neo was behind him, holding the AMR. Wisely, the guy complied, sticking his hands behind his back as Mercury ziptied his wrists, before pulling him up and shoving him to the direction of the wall.

"Join your buddies on the wall!" Mercury shouted before turning to Neo. "Thanks for the help."  
_Any time, _Neo signed, before walking off to help Emerald ziptie the last controller.

Five minutes later, all thirty-three controllers were lined up against the wall of the ship. They sat cross-legged, their hands ziptied together.

"Well, well," Roman announced. "What are we going to do with you?"

The controllers looked terrified, but they were luckily saved by the appearance of Cinder, who had walked in Roman's direction.

"I've found something on the security feed. Four huntresses."

"Four of them?"  
"Are you deaf, Roman? Yes, four huntresses."  
"What did they look like?" Adam whispered quietly.

"One had a red cloak, one wore yellow, one was wearing a white dress, and one was wearing a black shirt and tunic."

"Did the girl with the black shirt have cat ears."

"Yes."  
_"Blake." _Adam whispered from behind them. He turned to his grunts and said, "I want all of you to go down there to the huntsmen's quarters. Kill anyone you find, but save the girl."

"Which girl?" a grunt replied, somewhat stupidly.

"The cat-eared girl, you idiot," another grunt told him, before slapping him in the head with his palm.

"Shoot to kill everyone else, but shoot to wound Blake. It's time we show them who we're really dealing with." Adam said, completely ignoring Roman and Cinder.

-/-/-

"We're lost." Weiss deadpanned.  
"No we're not, Weiss." Ruby replied.

"Admit it, Ruby. We're lost."

"Shut up!"

"Both of you, stop it!" Yang interjected. "Doesn't it strike you as weird that the lockdown alarm stopped?"

"Maybe they changed their mind and just went home?" Ruby grimaced at how bad it sounded, even to herself.

"Plan hasn't changed. Let's just get an escape pod and get out of here." Blake pointed out.  
They weren't the only ones in the corridor. The corridor had been swarmed with huntsmen and huntresses who were now equipped in their battle gear. The corridor ended in a dead end at the right side, and a single door at the left. Right now, the huntsmen and huntresses were clustered in front of the door. If someone got in, they'd need to deal with them quick.

Team RWBY headed towards a group of four people who they'd recognized. It was Jaune Arc, carrying his trusty sword, Crocea Mors, Pyrrha Nikos with her two spears (Milo, Akuo) and shield, Nora Valkyrie hefting an enormous grenade launcher (Magnhild) and Lie Ren wielding two pistols, Stormflower.

"Hey, guys. What are you doing?" Jaune said as he noticed them.  
"We're just..."

"Going on an escape pod so that we can get out of here," Ruby blurted, before smacking her hand over her mouth as she realized what she just said.

"That's desertion." Pyrrha pointed out.

"Yes, but if we stay longer, chances are, there won't be a Beacon."  
Ruby had finally managed to hack into the bridge's security feed. She brought up the camera footage and showed it to the four members of Team JNPR. Jaune paled as he saw the controllers lined up, including Glynda, and Ozpin lying in a pool of blood. Pyrrha looked stunned, Nora's expression betrayed her sadness, and Ren's anger was clearly etched into his face.

"They've taken the bridge," Blake explained. "We really need to get into an escape pod. We don't want another _Overlord _Incident."

All of the members winced in hearing about that.

"No, we don't." Jaune pointed out. "Can we really risk desertion, though?"

"Yes, we can," everyone from Team RWBY except Weiss said. Ruby quickly elbowed Weiss in the stomach and she responded with, "OK fine."  
Blake looked at the ceiling while she tried to remember what the escape pods had. "There's room for 8 people. We just need to find a droid and a translator, if possible."

"Oh, why didn't you say so?" Nora grinned. "We found one wandering the hallways a few minutes ago! Two, actually."

"Then let's go!" Ruby dissolved into a whirlwind of rose petals, leaving the stunned students in the dust. Near the end of the corridor, she seemed to realize where she was and quickly sped back to the others, muttering, "Oops, sorry."

"Let's go. We have no time to waste." Ren pointed out. "I believe they will be here any minute now."

The solitary _bdew _of a blaster bolt confirmed Ren's theory, and the group quickly headed off to where Nora thought she saw the droid.

-/-/-

Fortunately for the group, they found exactly what they were looking for, and it was near the escape pods as well.

Ruby turned the umpteenth corner and _finally _found the droid and translator. "Guys, I found them!"

The droid seemed to see the group and stopped short, beeping in confusion. The translator stopped too, hesitantly moving towards them.

The droid was a cylindrical metal sphere, with an LCD strip running among the top. Two repulsors mounted on the bottom enabled it to levitate, while a small universal port at the side would allow it to activate an escape pod.

Exactly what they needed.

The translator looked quite different. The bot had a humanoid structure, with two rounded optics where there were eyes. An LCD strip ran along the width of the forehead, and the arms of the bot were rounded.

"Oh my," the bot declared, "I believe we have visitors. I am T4-07, or Teefour, and my friend is-"

"Dontcarewerekindofinahurrysorryaboutthat!" Ruby panted, trying to speak as fast as possible. "Weneedtogetintoanescapepodandgetoutofhere!"

_Beep! Beep-boop-whirr!_

"My friend's name is MD-17, or Emdee. He is a mechanical droid. He can get you into an escape pod. We must go." The bot's syntax sounded more robotic than a translator would, which was strange, but the group had no time to dwell on it.

MD was easily able to keep up with their repulsors, but T4 had a harder time with their bipedal legs.

"I'm terribly sorry that I'm slowing us down!" the bot apologized as they clunked down the metal hallway.

"Are you a boy or a girl?" Nora asked. T4 looked directly at her, the LCD strip on their body lighting up.

"I have feminine programming, but I do not have a gender."

"And what about your good friend?"  
"Masculine programming. No biological gender."

"That settles it, then."

"Let's go," Blake urged before they could continue. "We're so close to the escape pods. Just two more minutes."

Emdee let out a long string of beeps, the LCD strip blipping as well.

"That isn't very optimistic," Teefour commented. Blake decided it would be better if she didn't ask.

The two-minute journey to the escape pods happened quicky. Emdee seemed to have taken a liking to Jaune and was now beeping happily at him. Poor Teefour could barely keep up with the translation and Jaune wished he could speak in binary.

Finally, the last door opened. They were in the escape pod bay. To the immediate right was stairs to the next floor. To the left were the escape pods themselves, while the middle was another set of doors.

"I get the feeling we should watch the doors. If the enemies come in, it'll most likely be through the middle doors." Ruby pointed out.  
"Good thinking," Jaune said. "Okay, how about everyone finds some cover, weapons at the ready. Teefour, can you get Emdee to activate the escape pod?"

_Beep! Beep-boop!_

"He's doing it already," Teefour translated as Emdee floated over to the escape pod port, stuck out the universal arm, and connected it up to the port.

All eight huntsmen and huntresses had found spots of cover. Ruby was crouched behind the large column next to the pod bay – Blake had the column on the opposite side. Yang, Ren, Pyrrha and Weiss took cover behind a raised section of floor, while Nora had opted to climb the stairs slightly and get an elevated position.

Just then, Emdee's LCD strip flashed and the droid let out a frantic string of beeps.

"He senses enemies nearby," Teefour interpreted. "Probably about to open that d-"  
The doors hissed open, revealing thirty startled White Fang members. They clutched ES-2s and BP-6s, while grenades hung on their belts. They hesitated, and that hesitation was their downfall.

"_OPEN FIRE!" _Ruby screamed, firing Crescent Rose before she finished saying the second word. Immediately, every other member started doing the same. All except for Teefour, who nearly got decapitated by a blaster bolt and retreated to Ruby's cover, and Jaune, who couldn't do anything with Crocea Mors at range.

"Oh!" she cried. "Oh no!"

Fortunately, Ruby and co. weren't doing a bad job. Nora was adding to the confusion by raining grenades into the hallway. Each grenade was accompanied by a burst of salmon-colored gas and a shower of dead White Fang members. Yang was firing Ember Celica as fast as her gauntlets would allow. Pyrrha threw Milo, impaling it into the skull of an unfortunate White Fang member before summoning it back to her hand. Weiss wasn't able to use Myrtenaster offensively, but she did shoot jets of fire and ice over the Fang members, forcing them to retreat briefly.

"Emdee!" Ruby shouted over the clatter of gunfire, poking her head out to empty a full magazine into the cover of a Fang member before ducking back. "How's the escape pod going?"

_Beep-blip-bee-deep!_

"What do you mean, _keep your hair on_?" Teefour replied incredulously. "Can't you see that-"

_Beep!_

"He's in!" Teefour said joyously, as the door to the escape pod hissed open. "He's in!"

"Then let's go! Weiss! Ice wall, then run into the escape pod!" Ruby shouted.

Weiss looked at her, then nodded. Poking her head out from behind the ledge, a powerful jet of ice erupted from Myrtenaster, covering the entire doorway in giant icicles.

Gunfire rippled from behind the icewall. Emdee blipped worriedly.

"Thirty seconds till it breaks," Teefour translated. "We should go now."

"JNPR! Yang! Blake! Weiss! Get in the escape pod!" Ruby yelled. "We've got thirty seconds 'till they break the ice!"  
"Then let's go!" Jaune sheathed his sword and ran into the escape pod, ducking his head in the doorway. The bullet-shaped escape pod was tiny, fifty meters wide and barely big enough for eight people. LCD screens covered the inside, and there were eight Huntsmen survival suits with standard combat visors, as well as, to Jaune's satisfaction, eight first aid kits strapped into the seats. Jaune was the first one in as he strapped into the first non-pilot seat. Weiss was next, in the second seat. Then came Blake, Yang, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren, and finally Ruby took her place in the pilot seat.

"Let's see if I can fly this thing," Ruby muttered to herself, booting up the navigation computer and selecting Remnant.

Emdee and Teefour trundled aboard as Emdee beeped. "Five seconds!" Teefour gasped.

"Let's go, then!" Jaune said as Ruby disengaged the docking clamps, rotated the escape pod, and slammed the throttle forward. The sudden transition from slow to blindingly fast threw everyone except Ruby back into their seats, G-force rippling the skin on their cheeks.

"Approaching jump," Ruby said for no discernible reason. "Get ready to jump in five, four, three, two..."

The entire escape pod lurched, then disappeared into hyperspace, shuddering lightly. Jaune finally picked himself up from the floor and levered himself into a comfortable position on his seat, and a quick glance showed that everyone else was doing the same.

"I did say I wanted to lie down, Ruby. But not _exactly _like this," Jaune laughed, although he only got glares in response. (Yang gave him a half-smile for his efforts.)

"Coming out of hyperspace in five, four, three, two..."

The pod juddered, then returned to subluminal speed. Jaune saw the stars reform, then the mighty globe of Remnant below him.

"We're going to go directly to reentry." Ruby engaged the throttle again, leaving Jaune's stomach back in his throat.

"_At subluminal speed?"_ someone gasped. Jaune wasn't sure if it was him or Ren.

"That's why you strap in," Ruby said, pointing to the suits. Everyone grudgingly pulled themselves into the survival suit and strapped on their combat visors.

"Emdee, is this suit on correctly?" Blake asked, and was rewarded with white text on the top right of her visor: SUIT ON CORRECTLY.

Blake flipped the visor and said, "Hey, guys, the helmet can translate Emdee."

"So does that make me useless?" Teefour cried.

"Not at all," Ruby assured. "Now, everyone, hang on to something. We're going to enter Remnant's atmosphere in five, four, three, two…."

Jaune felt it first – a violent shaking that seemed to rip everything apart. Next came the roar, as loud as hearing an _Overlord_ at full throttle next to your ear. The shaking got so violent that Jaune was seeing quadruple. His visor was throwing up double images and the translation of Emdee's panicked beeps ended up nauseating him.

_INCORRECT LANDING PROCEDURE!_

Jaune tried not to look at the altimeter. The numbers were dropping so rapidly he could barely read them. He didn't want to think about what would happen if they hit zero without the parachute deployed.

Fortunately, Ruby fixed this for him as she hit the parachute deployment button.

"Parachute confirmed. We should be OK now."  
Unfortunately, the parachute's lines had gotten tangled, and the twisted rag was only able to open itself halfway.

"That's not good," she gasped as the parachute half-inflated. "Everybody, hang on to something and assume the brace position. This pod is built to survive, but you may break a bone if something goes wrong. Just saying."

_Just saying?_

Jaune very quickly tightened the straps and closed his eyes, placing his left arm on his right shoulder and vice versa. It should happen any minute now.

His visor translated Emdee's electronic screams: _BRACE FOR IMPACT! BRACE FOR IMPACT!  
_There was a noise a million times louder than Jaune had ever imagined as the escape pod hit the dirt of Remnant. Potential energy transformed to kinetic in an instant. Outside the escape pod, someone would have seen the pod hit the dirt, and dirt spraying everywhere as the pod left a fifty-meter crater in the surrounding area.

Jaune's world was vibrating. His head, body, and legs were all shaking violently. The extreme deceleration nearly yanked Jaune out of his seat. His stomach strap counteracted this. Searing pain ripped through Jaune's abdomen as the stomach strap arrested his movement. He was alive, at least. Unscathed? No. Alive? Yes. Nauseous? Certainly.

The pain was so bad Jaune was on the verge of blacking out. He didn't dare check what happened lest he make the injury worse.

"Ruby…" Jaune rasped. "You really do need to work on your landings."

Across the pod, Ruby gave him a small smile, and he lost the fight to stay conscious.

===END OF CHAPTER 2===

**A/N: Chapter 2. I bet you guys have a lot of questions. I ended it here because I was getting quite tired of writing this chapter.**

**Emdee and Teefour are quite obviously homages to R2-D2 and C-3PO. I didn't want it to be _that _obvious, but I watched The Rise of Skywalker and decided I'd like it if I had those two in my story.**

**Neo can now actually speak. The plan was to have her speak anyway and retcon Chapter 1, but I don't feel like doing that. So the lip-translator came in. It allows me and her to walk the line between sign language and talking. I think I pulled it off OK.**

**Also, 7,000 words! Woo hoo! That's one of my personal records per chapter. I want to beat it, but it won't be easy.**

**So, another cliffhanger, huh? Depends on your interpretation. I will say that the next chapter will involve someone finding out about the escape pod and some things that happen on Remnant.**

**Next chapter should come in a few days.**

**Over and out.**


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